Frequently covers crowdfunding, the sharing economy and social entrepreneurship.

November 15, 2013

In today’s edition of the daily head-scratcher: A fluffy, talkative stuffed animal creature with a funny-sounding name has gone from startup accelerator to Apple’s shelves in just over a year.

The Ubooly is a stuffed creature that has a sleeve to hold either an iPhone or an iPad mini. With the Ubooly downloadable application, the creature, which comes in a variety of bright, kid-friendly colors, talks to kids and directs them to play games and go on imagined adventures.

Last week, the Ubooly toy hit Apple stores in Japan and Europe. Yesterday, it hit Toys R Us stores in Japan.

But that’s chump change compared to the $2.5 million that Ubooly has raised in venture capital investments, led by Japanese investor SoftTech VC, Silicon Valley-based Translink Capital, and early-stage seed investor 500 Startups.

One reason Boulder, Colo.-based Ubooly was able to get on the shelves of prime retailers in Japan is because of the connections provided from Japan-based investment firm SoftTech VC.

The Ubooly team picked the quirky name because of numerous studies showing that sounds like “ooh” and “aah” are soothing. They brainstormed 20 various combinations and then tested the names on parents and kids. The combination that creates “Ubooly” was the crowd favorite, by leaps and bounds.